1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a discharge inspection mechanism, a recording device, a discharge inspection method, and a discharge inspection program.
2. Description of Related Art
When an inkjet printer that prints images or other content on paper or other recording medium by discharging a recording fluid (referred to as simply “ink” below) from a plurality of nozzles disposed to a print head has some nozzles from which ink is not discharged properly, the content may not be properly printed. As a result, discharge inspection technologies that check whether ink is discharged reliably from the nozzles have been developed. The inkjet printer taught in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A-H11-170569, for example, detects if ink is discharged normally from a nozzle by detecting change in the field strength produced between electrodes by the charged ink droplets discharged from the nozzle. If the nozzles are not discharging normally, the nozzles are cleaned.
With the inkjet printer taught in Japanese Unexamined Patent Appl. Pub. JP-A-H11-170569, however, it is conceivable that the change in the field strength produced between electrodes by charged ink droplets discharged from the nozzle may not be correctly detected if the inkjet printer is subject to an external impact or vibration from shaking, for example, during the discharge inspection process. This may result in determining that properly discharging nozzles are not discharging correctly or conversely determining that nozzles that are not discharging are discharging correctly, and the discharge inspection thus returns an incorrect result. This can then result in cleaning nozzles that are functioning normally and do not need cleaning, or not cleaning nozzles that are not discharging and need cleaning.